Hi Hans,

Thanks for your remarks. Regarding scientific method. There is a wide difference of opinion on that topic. I studied the philosophy of science books and they don't agree, and I studied the history of science books and they don't agree. My conclusion is that there is only a broad agreement on what it is and agreement that there are many different interpretations of it. If you...

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Hi Hans,

Thanks for your remarks. Regarding scientific method. There is a wide difference of opinion on that topic. I studied the philosophy of science books and they don't agree, and I studied the history of science books and they don't agree. My conclusion is that there is only a broad agreement on what it is and agreement that there are many different interpretations of it. If you disagree with my view then that is your opinion to do so.

There is a large literature addressing problems of method in science and the application of the so called method. I cited several books that address that in my references. You should read them. There is a specific problem regarding the work of Mr Ivor Catt. He has cited an experiment called the Wakefield experiment that refutes the currently accepted theory of EM. His web site has an extensive documentation of resistance to his views. The bottom line is scientists frequently don't follow the scientific method.

I was able to only briefly discuss my view of the method. My view is that the method only demonstrates sufficiency and can not prove necessity of any tested theory. So it can only say if a theory might be true, and not that it is necessarily true. In the case of Ivor Catt, he cites an experiment that disproves accepted theory, but that is dismissed because of the prejudice that science already knows the truth, so the new theory can never get considered.

Regarding mathematics. I have read many books on the philosophy and methods of mathematics. Aristotle showed that the idea that the nature is mathematics, a Pythagorean idea, was faulty. Modern science has revived that conception and advocated it without fully understanding what is involved. My view is that mathematics is a human invention and is purely a creation of the human mind in its attempt to understand nature. It is not what nature is made of.

The thesis of my essay was that the tools of modern science are insufficient to understand the larger aspects of reality, and I proposed going back to the tools of philosophy and specifically suggested Aristotle as a starting point. That introduces the conception of a Final Cause. I suggested some axioms that ought also to be considered as well. My suggestion was based upon the inability of physical science methods to address the philosophical problems being posed in the essay contest.

As regards the conception of God or deity. It is pretty easy to misinterpret that concept. I am merely suggesting that science take God seriously, or frankly admit that the scientific method excludes it from the discussion. However, doing that severely limits the kinds of knowledge that science can legitimately claim to know. It looks like the current conception of science is to claim it can know or prove everything without limits. That is obviously false, and scientists would be better advised if they would frankly say that they don't deal in truth but only in what might be true about the physical world alone.

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Jim,

I am not sure what scientific nihilism is. That was not my point and apparently you misunderstood. My point was that the way science is currently being done is not capable of answering the questions being addressed and I suggested going back to fundamentals of natural science in the form of Greek philosophy. I particularly recommended the method of Aristotle who is most correctly the...

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Jim,

I am not sure what scientific nihilism is. That was not my point and apparently you misunderstood. My point was that the way science is currently being done is not capable of answering the questions being addressed and I suggested going back to fundamentals of natural science in the form of Greek philosophy. I particularly recommended the method of Aristotle who is most correctly the first scientist and the inventor of science, not Galileo or Newton.

Aristotle studied nature from the viewpoint of nature as a biological system, and he objected strongly to the materialist interpretation of nature. People need to read that. Unfortunately, modern science adopted the viewpoint of the materialists and so the result is nihilism, and not true science, which I prefer to call natural philosophy. Natural philosophy in my view is an approach to nature which is not based upon a nihilistic materialism as currently fashionable in scientific circles.

As for matter following entropic principles, that sounds to me like a materialistic assumption and not the kind of assumption that natural philosophy should embody. However, it is a start is the right direction.

Since science is a human enterprise it is obvious that the hylomorphist axiom ought to have a human viewpoint incorporated into it rather than the materialistic assumption built into science. As it stands modern science merely serves atheism and that doesn't lead us into anything other than to nihilism.

So to conclude, the current record of materialistic science is not very good in terms of producing knowledge in the deeper sense. It doesn't do a very good job in addressing simple materialistic truth as in physics. The primary theories of physics, relativity and quantum mechanics, are known to be incompatible, and in my experience the electromagnetic theory is untrustworthy as well. So it is fairly arrogant to try to extend methods that don't work that well in materialistic science to the bigger problems of the nature of the universe. I am suggesting that physicists clean up their own back yard by taking a critical look at their tools and methods before venturing to apply physical methods into biological systems.

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